Two Ways House Didn't Wake Up and One Way He Did
by lone-sehlat
Summary: Two ways House didn't wake up after the events of Help Me and one way he did...


He woke, several hours after moving from the bathroom floor, with a startled gasp. Bad dream. Nightmare. The collapsed parking garage rubble shifting, collapsing again, trapping him, pinning him next to the corpse of his patient. Her blank eyes staring at him, clouded over yet still seeming to see right through him. Her voice echoing in his ears as she kept asking why. Why was she dead? Why had he not held out for more time instead of talking her into the amputation.

Moving to get up to return to the bathroom for the bottle of pills he had left on the floor, the events of the evening flooded back to him, causing the nightmare to retreat. He couldn't move, the reason he probably dreamt he was trapped, was lying beside him. Cuddy, curled against his frame, sprawled over his left side, head nestled in the hollow of his shoulder. It wasn't crumbled concrete, but the woman whom he thought he had lost all chances with. He wasn't quite sure he would lay money on the odds of them working out. He was messed up, knew it and had recently come to the conclusion it was what it was and she...well, like she told him- she loved him but wished she didn't. How long before the reality of living with him helped that wish overwhelm any love she did have for him? Only took Stacy five years. She had often told him the same thing- that she loved him but wished she didn't. He had always found perverse pleasure in the statement. That much hadn't changed obviously, given Cuddy was already in his bed and as he looked down at their bodies, naked.

He reached out to brush a stray curl from her face as he closed his eyes again, grateful for her presence, the nightmare faded enough to allow a troubled sleep to overtake him again.

* * *

"Fuck." he gasped. Again. Tumbling concrete, billowing clouds of dust that caused him to cough reflexively although the dust wasn't real. Another dream. He still couldn't move, the weight seeming heavier than the last time and his eyes widened as he looked down to find the reason why. Was he hallucinating? He had to be. That was the only explanation. The thought of this was worse than the dream with his patient with the death-clouded eyes. He tried to move his arm, but he was effectively pinned to the bed.

Couldn't be. He must have taken the pills. Must have taken more than just the two pills he remembered spilling out into his hand as he sat on the bathroom floor. He closed his eyes, took a few deep breaths and opened them again. Still met with the same sight. Wilson. Brown tousled haired head laying on his shoulder, warm large hand splayed across his midsection, just below his heart. He thought frantically back to the evening before. When had Wilson shown up? Hopefully before he took any pills? Please. _Please say it was before I took the pills,_ he thought. _Stop being foolis_h, he told himself. Wilson didn't want him this way. Even if this was Wilson not a vicodin or stress induced hallucination, this didn't mean anything. Couldn't mean anything. Wilson had Sam.

Despite the fear he was hallucinating again, at least it wasn't Amber or Kutner, or his father. If this was a hallucination it was an oddly comforting one. He tightened his arm around Wilson's shoulders, turning a little to nuzzle his face against his head and closed his eyes. If this was a hallucination, he thought briefly before sleep overtook him again, it was a vivid one. He swore he could smell Wilson's scent.

* * *

"No!" His own scream tearing him from sleep. Third time that night, same nightmare. The parts of the garage the firefighters had managed to jack up as they tried to pull his patient from under the rubble collapsing as the ruined building shifted on its unsteady foundation, leaving him alone with the patient, dead and accusing him of failing her. There was a difference this time, he was able to roll out of bed, one hand grasping his thigh, the other wiping the remnants of the nightmare from his eyes. He wasn't trapped. There wasn't a ruined slab of concrete pinning him, nor was Cuddy or Wilson laying beside him, half on top of him. Anchoring him.

He stood wearily after a few moments, memories of his two earlier nightmares, this most recent one and the actual events of the previous day too much. He needed to move. Stumbling towards the bathroom he looked at the tub full of mirror shards. So much for a bath or shower. So much for so called friends being there for you when you needed them.

At the sink, he turned the cold water tap on and rinsed his hands and face. Automatically he looked up, expecting to see his reflection despite only moments ago having stared at the ruined mirror in his tub. What did catch his eye was the second bottle of pills, still sitting in the niche he had painstakingly carved out of the wall. He grinned. Who needed friends who would abandon you? He had a bottle of little white friends that never let him down.


End file.
